Exam prep yields two CPAs – and one marriage

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the entire month of February we’re highlighting Ohio accounting couples. Find out how they met, first impressions and how accounting factors into their love story. From newlyweds to those celebrating decades of marriage, check back each week for the latest couple.

Meeting your future spouse can happen in the most unlikely places. For example, consider OSCPA members Kaitlin and Ryan Newkirk, who met at a CPA exam prep course.

“We were going to Becker CPA Exam Review at the same time and a group of people studied together and became friends,” said Kaitlin, a CPA and professor at Xavier University. “We got to know each other through that and really hit it off.”

After dating for about two years, she and Ryan Newkirk, also a CPA, were married in 2008 at Bellarmine Chapel on Xavier University’s campus. Kaitlin is from the Cleveland area and attended Xavier for undergrad. Ryan is from Cincinnati.

Now in between Kaitlin’s teaching schedule and Ryan’s job as vice president at Westwood Management, they stay busy chasing around two young sons.

“We have two little boys who are five and three years old,” Kaitlin said. “Most of our activities now involve going to parks and the zoo and doing all those fun family activities.”

The couple agreed that with young children and full-time jobs their schedule is packed, so they don’t talk very much about accounting in their free time. But they agreed it’s helpful to have someone who understands the demands and obligations of the profession.

“For the exciting things that happen in the accounting world, it is definitely nice to have someone that understands,” Ryan said.

“And from time to time if one of us sees an event or training that would pertain to the other person’s job or career, we’ll shoot that over to the other person,” Kaitlin said.

She has been actively involved with OSCPA, spending time on the Young CPAs committee and the Women’s Initiative. She’s also an advisor to the OSCPA Xavier University college ambassador, an experience that she said is surreal, as she was the first OSCPA college ambassador at Xavier.

“The student that’s the ambassador right now on campus is just fantastic, and it’s really exciting to see how much the program has grown,” she said.

And although the Newkirks don’t talk a lot about accounting at home, much like how they met, the profession sometimes plays an unexpected influence in their lives. The couple planned their 2008 November wedding to avoid a tax deadline, since they were both working in public accounting at the time.

“We wanted to be able to take off time for our wedding and honeymoon,” Kaitlin said.

They said their honeymoon in St. Lucia was a wonderful trip, especially without a tax deadline to worry about.